Feast day: 14 August
Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe
Sanctus Maximilianus Maria Kolbe
Polish Franciscan publisher and missionary who offered his life in place of a father condemned to die of starvation at Auschwitz.
- Born
- 8 January 1894, Zduńska Wola (Poland)
- Died
- 14 August 1941, Auschwitz concentration camp
- Canonization
- Beatified 1971 by Paul VI; canonized 10 October 1982 by Saint John Paul II as a martyr of charity.
- Religious order
- Conventual Franciscans
- Country
- Poland
Biography
Apostle of the press
Ordained in Rome in 1918, Kolbe founded the Militia Immaculatae and the magazine Knight of the Immaculata. At Niepokalanów near Warsaw he built the largest friary in the world, with printing presses reaching a million readers, and from 1930 to 1936 he ran a mission in Nagasaki, Japan.
Auschwitz
During the German occupation he sheltered refugees, including some two thousand Jews. Arrested in February 1941, he was deported to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670. When ten men were chosen to die in the starvation bunker after an escape, Kolbe stepped forward in place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, a married man with children. He led the condemned in prayer and was killed by an injection of carbolic acid on 14 August 1941. Gajowniczek survived and attended his canonization.
Timeline
- 1894 — Born in Poland
- 1917 — Founds the Militia Immaculatae in Rome
- 1927 — Establishes Niepokalanów
- 1930 — Begins the mission in Nagasaki
- 1941 — Dies at Auschwitz on 14 August
- 1982 — Canonized by John Paul II
Dates marked ~ are traditional or debated among historians.
Symbols
Striped camp uniform — His martyrdom at Auschwitz.
Two crowns, white and red — A childhood vision of purity and martyrdom, both of which he accepted.
Virtues & spiritual lessons
Marian consecration, apostolic zeal and heroic charity. He shows that love is proved by giving one's life for another.
Importance in the Church
John Paul II named him 'the patron saint of our difficult century'. His death answered the ideology of the camps with the Gospel logic of self-gift, and his Marian movement continues worldwide.
Quotes
“I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man.”
Words at Auschwitz, testimony of surviving prisoners, July 1941
“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it.”
Letter to his brothers, Niepokalanów
Prayers
Consecration to the Immaculata (Militia Immaculatae)
O Immaculata, Queen of heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, I, an unworthy sinner, cast myself at your feet, humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Amen.
Act of consecration composed by Saint Maximilian Kolbe, 1917.
Places
Auschwitz, Block 11, Poland — The starvation cell where he died, now a shrine.
Niepokalanów, Poland — The friary and publishing city he founded.
Entries are drawn from the Roman Martyrology, the General Roman Calendar, canonization records of the Holy See, and the saints' own writings. Where a date, quotation or attribution is uncertain, it is marked as such. (63 saints)